Battlefront UK Plays Infantry Aces: Part Three

Battlefront UK Plays Infantry Aces: Part Three with Anders Johansson This week the UK team reports on the first game of their Infantry Aces campaign. Read Battlefront UK Plays Infantry Aces: Part One here... Read Battlefront UK Plays Infantry Aces: Part Two here... Read Battlefront UK Plays Infantry Aces: Part Four here... Learn more about the history of the Cassino campaign here... Learn more about upcoming Cassino releases here... Learn more about what Infantry Aces is here...

The campaign has finally gotten into gear and three battles have been fought so far with the Germans prevailing in all three. The first battle, which was the Boot Camp fight between Dan’s Ghurkhas and Alex’s Fallschirmjäger (we decided to count it as campaign battle to give us some more experience points for our Aces). It was a close run thing but since a Ghurkha Platoon perished along with the Ace we counted it as German victory. The fight was particularly bloody with groups’ elite troops facing off in close combat, with just two teams surviving from the Fallschirmjäger. Right: Dan's Ghurkha Command team.

Second battle followed the Valley route. The first one had taken the Mountain route, where my Goums tried to advance against Matt’s 44th Reich Grenadiers. The Reich Grenadiers are rated as Confident Trained and even at 500 points they some good support options available, being cheap they also have the points for it. Basically the Goums went down in hail of heavy machine-gun and mortar fire trying to get into assault range with the Grenadiers. Below: Ander's Goums.

Third battle saw Tim with his Ghurkhas going up against Carlo’s 90th Panzergrenadiers. This was Tim’s first Flames Of War game and he had to overcome a steep learning curve. Playing Encounter, the Germans dug- in to cover their objective, relying on the high rate of fire of their MG teams to prevent any assaults. They also had a pesky sniper to further disrupt the Ghurkhas advance.

The Germans reserves arrived (the second Panzergrenadier platoon) and made a speedy advance towards an unguarded objective. Meanwhile, the first Ghurkha platoon attempted to assault the Germans dug-in on the objective but were turned back by heavy defensive fire. With only a couple of Ghurkhas left the Panzergrenadiers counter attacked as per proper German doctrine and took them out. With the last Ghurkha Platoon coming in from reserves but not in a position to stop the Panzergrenadiers from capturing one of the objectives the battle was over.

The lack of any Allied (much to do with the lists we chosen to play) support combined with German support organisation (you can only take options from Combat and Weapons Platoons on the 500 point level) contributed to the first turn results. We decided to play the campaign historically, with the Allies attacking the Germans whenever possible. This felt appropriate for a Cassino campaign, it’s tough on the Allies but that is how it should be. ~ Anders.